Biocontrol of sheath blight of rice (Oryza sativa L.) through alteration in expression dynamics of candidate effector genes of Rhizoctonia solani AG1-IA during pathogenesis

In genome analyses of Rhizoctonia solani AG1-IA causing sheath blight (ShB) of rice, many genes were identified to have a hypothetical role in pathogenesis. To understand their roles in pathogenesis, their expressions during fungal infection were studied. An aggressive R. solani strain, RIRS-K, was first identified among six isolates, RIRS-K, RIRS-17, RIRS-S, RIRS-T, RIRS-MU and RIRS-FD, for inducing a maximum relative lesion height (RLH) of 32.7% on a ShB susceptible cultivar, Pusa Basmati-1. Hypothetical pathogenicity genes (52 nos) identified by in silico analyses of the publicly available genomic database of the pathogen strain were evaluated in Pathogen-Host Interaction (PHI) blast and RIRS-K. Though PHI blast identified 26 genes as potential ones, only 8 were constitutively expressive in RIRS-K cultured in a minimal broth. Among them, only expressions of AG1IA_06195, AG02692, AG04508, and AG05730 were induced in the rice plant inoculated with RIRS-K and, hence, were identified as the candidate ones. The candidate genes were highly expressed in the aggressive strain (RIRS-K) in comparison to the less aggressive one (RIRS-17). In further testing of their expressions in the highly aggressive fungal strain, RIRS-K infecting PB-1 pre-colonized by a potent biocontrol consortium comprising of Bacillus subtilis (S17TH), Pseudomonas putida (TEPF-Sungal-1), and Trichoderma harzianum (S17TH), the disease scoring and gene expression studies indicated that the candidate genes were downregulated. The studies, therefore, speculated that these genes might play a role in pathogen aggressiveness and ShB development.